Imagery & resources for LA wildfires

My wife and I were planning a trip to visit a friend in Pasadena for the upcoming Labor Day weekend. We've been hearing about the huge Station Fire burning in the nearby hills, and have been diligently searching for maps and news with the latest updates. For us, it's a mere matter of deciding whether we'll hop in the car tomorrow, but for many of you out there, the latest update on the fire's progress will help you keep tabs on loved ones or perhaps even your own property and safety. That's why a cross-team group at Google has launched a California Wildfires landing page, with:

• a My Maps map from the Los Angeles Times tracking the latest position of the fire,
• status updates from the US Forest Service,
• YouTube videos of the fire,
• a Google News gadget with latest news and
• other updates from relevant sources

In addition, our partners at DigitalGlobe have made available some stunning satellite imagery tracking the fires, which you can get by downloading this kml to open within Google Earth.

We also created a time-series of lower resolution imagery from NASA's MODIS Terra satellite. To watch the progression of the fire simply download the KML and click the play button in the upper left hand corner of the Google Earth viewport. You may want to play it more than once to allow the imagery to load if you want a smoother transition during playback. You can also turn individual images on and off.

If you live in the area, please stay safe. Depending on how the winds shift and the continuing heroic work of the firefighters, Laura and I just might see on you on Colorado Blvd. this weekend.

Posted by Jesse Friedman, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Dublin and Cardiff now in 3D

[Cross-posted from the Official SketchUp Blog]
Today, we added Dublin, Ireland and Cardiff, Wales to our collection of photo-textured 3D cities in Google Earth. With the '3D Buildings' layer in Google Earth turned on, you can now fly to these cities and explore everything from famous landmarks like Cardiff Castle, St. David's Hall, Aras An Uachtarain, and Custom House, to the quiet alleys of these historic cities. Cardiff and Dublin are comprised of primarily autogenerated models, but also include some user-created models as well. Have a look at this video for a look at the newest 3D cities in Google Earth.



Whether you're new to these cities, a native and feeling homesick, or anything in between, 3D cities in Google Earth enable you to visit locations on Earth no matter where you are. Enjoy!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Featured Map Maker: Leonel

[This post kicks off an ongoing series highlighting members of the Map Maker community. - Ed.]

Name: Leonel John Foronda (Leonel)
Day job: Physician
Region mapped: Philippines

When asked about Google Map Maker, 32-year-old physician Leonel John Foronda compares Google’s online map creation platform to the Human Genome Project, a scientific milestone completed early in the 21st century. “This project started out with the aim of ‘mapping’ the entire human DNA,” says Leonel. He then explains that, similar to the Human Genome project, which took years to complete, Google’s vision of plotting an online, searchable map of huge portions of the world is a daunting task. But such a goal is achievable with local people like him who are interested and willing to help.

“Before online maps were available to the general public, the only detailed print maps I had were those of North America. It was frustrating that maps of my hometown of Laoag City, Philippines for instance, were non-existent as there was little information about our roads, sub-localities, and our smaller political units, or ‘barangays’ as we call them.”

Below, check out the timelapse video of how the map of Laoag City, Philippines has changed from just one year ago.

Leonel discovered Map Maker in October 2008. “I was already a Google Earth user at the time. Although it was somewhat cool to play around with Earth, it was also disheartening to see major roads in Manila that were coarse and did not really align with the satellite map,” recounts Leonel. Around that time, he was surprised to see a detailed map of Manila credited to "Google Map Maker" embedded on a website. He immediately went to mapmaker.google.com and started making his own edits.

His first edit was to draw a road called J.P. Rizal Street in his hometown of Laoag City, whose map had been completely blank except for the main highway. After only a few weeks, Leonel was hooked. Due to his unpredictable working hours at the hospital, he tries to squeeze in his map-making where time permits, provided he has his laptop as well as a decent Internet connection.

At present, Leonel has 17,000+ edits in Map Maker, making him the top contributor in the Philippines. After spending hours mapping every square meter of Laoag City, he meticulously edited the boundaries and features of nearby provinces such as Cagayan, Ilocos Sur, Apayao, and other regions of the Philippines.

“Since it’s all voluntary, my contributions are published on Google Maps and Map Maker for free. Although we receive no compensation, I personally would like to think of it as my own little way of helping Google’s mission to map the world.” However, he admits that there are perks to being a "Google Map Maker Power User".

In April 2009, Leonel, with fellow map makers civil engineer Dante Varias and university student Wayne Dell Manuel, represented the Philippines in an international Google Map Maker User Conference in Bangalore, India. The three joined delegates from around the world to learn from each other’s experiences and hear from Googlers about updates to the product. Afterwards, the three shared their experiences from the event with more than 20 Map Maker users in the Philippines at a mapping party.

(l-r) Map Maker Power Users Leonel (17,000+ edits), Dante (14,000+ edits) and Wayne (10,000+ edits) speak at mapping party in Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant in the Philippines

“Personally, I feel honored that I am making something that could help people, businesses, and even tourism boards by placing them on the map. Anyone who has knowledge of a particular place, such as his or her own hometown, is encouraged to contribute to Map Maker. Becoming a mapper in this platform does not need high-level technical skills as there are experienced people who are ready to guide and moderate your edits,” says Leonel.

With more and more people becoming map makers, he hopes that like the success of the Human Genome Project at mapping human DNA, the online map of the physical world will someday be complete.

Posted by Julie Zhou, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Where in the world is... (Answers)

So how many were you able to figure out? I hope you didn't spend too much time on #7 as that was the false factoid. The images featured on the quiz included imagery from Geo-Eye, DigitalGlobe and aerial providers. I hope you had fun with the quiz; see you next time!

1) This city hosted Stage 4 and was the departure of Stage 5 in the 2008 Tour De France.
-- Cholet, France

2) Unscramble this: D-E-E-R-B-A-G-O
-- Beograde (Belgrade), Serbia

3) This port city in the Piura Region, hosted a United States air base during World War II.
-- Talara, Peru

4) Every October this city hosts an International Balloon Fiesta; with over 1,000 hot air balloons each year, it's the largest hot air balloon gathering in the world.
-- Albuquerque, New Mexico

5) The siege of this city was the longest siege in the history of modern warfare lasting from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996.
-- Sarajevo, Bosnia

6) This is one of the oldest and largest cities in Poland.
-- Krakcow, Poland

7) This city was founded after the civil war in 1578, named after the infamous bridge battle the decided the outcome of the war.
-- Trick question!

8) This city houses Russia's biggest nuclear submarine base.
-- Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia

9) This city is approximately 244 kilometres (152 mi) from Ankara, 255 kilometres (158 mi) from Adana, 222 kilometres (138 mi) from Izmir, and 300 kilometres (186 mi) from Istanbul.
-- Antalya, Turkey

10) This city was founded after the Port Royal earthquake in the 17th century.
-- Kingston, Jamaica

Following is a more complete version of the updates in this data push:

Americas:
United States: Alburqurque, Beaumont (Texas), part of the Mississippi River, Jefferson County (FL), Cass County (MO), Hamilton County (IA), Western Michigan, Portage (MI), Clinton County (MI), Eaton County (MI), Ingham County (MI), Greenville (SC), Baltimore (MD), Charles County (MD), Calvert County (MD), Dorchester County (MD), Carroll County (MD), Frederick County (MD).
Canada: Surrey (BC)
Peru: Talara
Argentina: Salta, Santiago del Estero, Villa Mercedes, Bahia Blanca

Brazil: Santa Maria, Joinville, Santos, Montes Claros, Petrolina, Araguaina, Parnaiba, Belem

Europe, Middle East, & Africa:
France: Manche, Mayenne, Maine-et-Loire, Marne, Haute-Marne, Meurthe-er-Mosselle, Lozere, Herault, Pau

Lithuania: Vilnius

Poland: Krakow, Lodz, Auschwitz

Slovakia: Bratlsavia

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Sarajevo

Serbia: Belgrade

Moldova: Chisinau

Russia: Perm, Chita, Avacha

Libya: Benghazi

Syria: Aleppo

Iran: Mashad

Turkey: Antalya

Pakistan: Lahore

Guinea-Bissau: Bissau

Guinea: Conakry

Liberia: Monrovia

Kenya: Mombasa

Swaziland: Mbabane

Asia & Oceania:
China: Nanchang, Yumen, Altay, Taizhou, Huaian, Chuzhou, Xingtai, Shijiazhuang, Leting, Baotou

New Zealand: Christchurch, Wellington, Bay of Plenty, Waipa

Antarctica: McMurdo Station

New 2.5m base imagery for: Mexico, Argentina, and India

For even more fun exploring the new imagery, here is a KML outlining all the areas receiving new data. Please note, if you see an area that is updated and not in this KML file, you're not crazy! As part of this update we are re-shuffling many of our satellite scenes to ensure that in areas where we have many satellite scenes stacked on top of each other that the newest image is visible. These are not considered 'new' updates since they've been available through Google Earth's Historical Imagery feature.

Posted by Wayne Thai, GIS Specialist

Street View gets down to business

Finding a business with Street View just became easier. For example, if you search for "thai restaurants near mountain view" on Google Maps, and click on a search result, a bubble pops up with various links, including a link to "Street View".

You can click on the "Street View" link to see the restaurant marked directly in Street View with a 3D marker just like the one you'd find on the map. Clicking the marker displays more details about the restaurant without leaving Street View.

If you move along the street, you will continue to see the marker in front of the restaurant, letting you see a business in the context of what else is around it. Double-clicking the marker will jump you back to the closest view.

While you are in Street View, you can also click on another search result in the left panel to jump to the closest view for that result. Take a look at this video for a quick overview:

We use the position of the business on the map to approximately display it as a 3D marker in Street View. We are continuously working on improving the quality of the underlying map, and this will result in more and more businesses being positioned with high accuracy in Street View over time.

Posted by Abhijit Ogale and Andrea Frome, Street View engineers

Where in the world is ...

What time is it? That's right, it's new imagery time! In between bites of fruit snacks and orange chicken, we've been working hard to add the newest available imagery in Google Earth and Maps. Here's a quiz showing you just a small sample of the new imagery that has been posted. To make things a little more interesting this month, here's a disclaimer: One of these facts is false and will lead you nowhere.

1) This city hosted Stage 4 and was the starting point of Stage 5 in the 2008 Tour De France.
2) Unscramble this D-E-E-R-B-A-G-O

3) This port city in the Piura Region was the home of a United States air base during World War II.

4) Every October, this city hosts an International Balloon Fiesta. With over 1,000 hot air balloons each year, it's the largest hot air balloon gathering in the world.


5) The siege of this city was the longest siege in the history of modern warfare, lasting from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996.

6) During WWII, this city was converted to the capital of Germany's General Government.

7) This city was founded after a civil war in 1578 and is named after the infamous bridge battle that decided the outcome of the war.

8)This city houses Russia's biggest nuclear submarine base.


9) This city is approximately 244 kilometres (152 mi) from Ankara, 255 kilometres (158 mi) from Adana, 222 kilometres (138 mi) from Izmir, and 300 kilometres (186 mi) from Istanbul.

10) This city was founded after the Port Royal earthquake in the 17th century.

Posted by Wayne Thai, GIS Specialist

3D makes headline news in Belgrade

[Cross-posted from the Official Google SketchUp Blog]
This morning, we received an email from a geo-modeler named Zexland from Belgrade, Serbia. This Industrial Design student was very proud to share that his 3D buildings in Google Earth made front page news in the local Serbian newspapers.

The newspaper article, "Three-dimensional Begrade," is translated to English or if you happen to understand Serbian, here is the original article. Good work Zeljko, we're very proud of your beautiful modeling!


Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager